First discovered in 2007, "fast radio bursts"
continue to defy explanation. These cosmic chirps last for only a thousandth of
a second. The characteristics of the radio pulses suggested that they came from
galaxies billions of light-years away. However, new work points to a much
closer origin - flaring stars within our own galaxy.
"We propose that fast radio bursts aren't as exotic as
astronomers first thought," says lead author Avi Loeb of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).